Maher to Truthers: Seek help

posted at 2:20 pm on September 15, 2007 by Allahpundit

Via your source for all anti-Truther news. A mild knock, predictably sandwiched between leering at Vanessa Hudgens and a three-minute rant about bare breasts, but we should try to encourage this sort of thing among celebrities so here’s his official HA pat on the back. The Truther segment starts at 4:50 if you’re counting down but his point about rebuilding at Ground Zero that precedes that by 30 seconds is on the money too.

If you can stand it, the clip ends with a mini-lecture about narcissism. From Bill Maher.

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I don’t get this. You take lying filthy communist America-hating slime like those in the MSM print, NY Times/WaPo and TV, networks, Maher, etc., then you spend years trying to educate people about how to see through their lies, then you reach a point where millions of people don’t even listen to their lies, and NOW, NOW you want us to listen to them again , and clap them on the back, because they just happen to be right once??

I will NEVER listen to Bill Mahr and his kind. Next you’ll be praising Bill Moyers.

JiangxiDad, I generally agree with your comments but on the one, above, I don’t. Some of you might be disappointed but I like his dry humor and his delivery. I don’t always agree with all he says but he’s one of a kind and his independence is inspiring.

Most of the time there is a kernel of truth in what he says, even if we don’t agree with him. I’m also puzzled by the inability to rebuild the towers sooner. I would have had them rebuilt in the first two years, exactly the same they used to be. Alas, they never asked me…

Loved the entire video. I used to watch him all the time but now only when on business trips and happen to wake up in the middle of the night, due to time differences…He’s an equal opportunity insulter. Maybe he doesn’t write this stuff but he can deliver it.

I had to laugh at the breast feeding part.
I will never forget, when my cousins wife breast fed, without even a blanket or anything to help cover up, in front of my Grandad!
We were dying laughing because she was standing right in front of Grandad talking to him and he was trying to look anywhere but THERE!
That happened over 30 years ago, Grandad is 101 now, but that really brought back memories.
We all thought she was a real hippie lol.

The lesser of two evils (or weevils, if you’re Rusell Crowe), I suppose: Maher was–and is–a moron for suggesting that the 19 terrorists were freedom fighters or otherwise “brave” as he called them. But at least he isn’t wearing the tinfoil hat. Schmuck, yes. Mentally deranged? Not yet, at least.

I’m also puzzled by the inability to rebuild the towers sooner. I would have had them rebuilt in the first two years, exactly the same they used to be.

Entelechy on September 15, 2007 at 2:58 PM

Well, living here, it’s a lot of local and state mumbo-jumbo that’s still going on. A lot of disappointment with the Freedom Tower design, the size of the memorial, Silverstein, going back to Pataki, the Port Authority, where the PATH trains will go, etc etc…It’s just a whole lot of buracratic BS.

And I agree with you…in rebuilding the towers as they were, but to add what Donald Trump said…make ‘em one story taller.

For the record, I was always hoping that ugly Freedom Tower (topped with all that useless lattice-work) would see the trash bin. But at this point, it is pathetic that all that really stands is the new WTC7.

“Our inability to build anything on the (WTC) site in six years symbolizes our national head up the ass. It took two years to build the Eifful tower. In the 1880’s. By hand. By Frenchman taking timeout of screwing their mistresses.”

lol a sickness?? jeez man. if thats how mean you get at something insignificant like a video of bill maher, wat the hell do you do when the mailman forgets your mail? do you shoot his whole family or something?

Pretty much offensive, if you ask me. “Even a dog can do it” when referring to having a baby, because breast-feeding is no longer the ubiquitous action it was, and causes discomfort for some. Wow. Funny.

Not.

Although, even a dog can make people laugh, without so much as using a word. Wonder how Maher’d like that comparison?

By now he has realized his comment about terrorist being brave was bull crap.

Terrorists are brave.

It takes physical courage to sacrifice your life for a cause. It takes courage to fight. To risk certain death and possibly pain and imprisonment.

It is one of the stupidest things in the world to say that that doesn’t take courage.

They are the wolves to your sheepdogs. Whether you agree with me or not, read this article.

The sheepdog and the wolf have many things in common. They are both willing to use violence. They are often eager to. They are both willing to take risk on themselves to accomplish what they want.

It is how similar these two look that causes many sheep not to see a distinction between them.

Yet there is a distinction and it is one of motive: one’s is to protect, the other to hurt, destroy, and dominate.

Yet courage is not the dividing line between the two. Morality is.
They are terrible people — and they transcend their fear over the welfare of their skins to turn themselves into weapons. It’s a long established strategy in Muslim military tradition.

It’s generally not as effective — nor as efficient in killing — as the European military tradition as expanded and developed on by the Americans (who added enormous logistics and industrial production capacity to the mix), but it does have successes.

Underestimating your enemy is no path to victory.

Berating their manhood and attacking their courage as a tactic makes sense. But don’t you believe it.

Christoph,
Good post. I think for some “bravery” has connotations of honor (or as you say morality), maybe that is why there was such a strong negative reaction to Maher’s 9/11 comment.

It took a level of discipline to plan the 9/11 attack, especially for those of the 19 who know it was a suicide mission. If we pretend that the terrorists lack the ability or the courage to kill again on a large scale then we are leaving ourselves vulnerable. There is a special place in hell for those 19, but they were determined and effectively managed their fear in order to effect their sick desire to kill innocent Americans.

Well done. I’ve come to his defense on that a few times in looking at it in the correct context, which was though it was pretty brave, it doesn’t excuse the monstrosity of the act. Yes, he’s still a leftist, but he can be pretty damn funny too. Though his show was much, much better when he actually had some conservatives on the panel.

Maher was the male lead in Cannibal Women in the Avacado Jungle of Death, and therefore has absolute moral authority as far as I’m concerned.

1 chuckle and 1 snicker. The funniest Maher has been in years, but he still has NO political credibility due to the sheer vastness of the number of issues in which his positions are 180 degrees from correct.

Maher was the male lead in Cannibal Women in the Avacado Jungle of Death, and therefore has absolute moral authority as far as I’m concerned.

If making bad movies disqualified you from serious thought we wouldn’t have had the benefit of Ronald Reagan’s career. Also, people can decide for themselves if Fred has what it takes, but shouldn’t consider his appearance on Roseanne Barr’s show.

Maher is probably more a mix of libertarian and liberal viewpoints. He voted for Dole against Clinton and has often spoken very highly of John McCain.

The big news on last night’s show was the interview with Chuck Hagel, who, Bernstein thought, sounded like he was angling for a third party run. Whoever gets the Republican nod is going to have to do a balancing act to avoid a run from either the conservative or moderate side of the party.

JiangxiDad, I generally agree with your comments but on the one, above, I don’t. Some of you might be disappointed but I like his dry humor and his delivery. I don’t always agree with all he says but he’s one of a kind and his independence is inspiring.

Most of the time there is a kernel of truth in what he says, even if we don’t agree with him. I’m also puzzled by the inability to rebuild the towers sooner. I would have had them rebuilt in the first two years, exactly the same they used to be. Alas, they never asked me…

Loved the entire video. I used to watch him all the time but now only when on business trips and happen to wake up in the middle of the night, due to time differences…He’s an equal opportunity insulter. Maybe he doesn’t write this stuff but he can deliver it.

You know I was really shocked that they did a segment today on Fox News with Katherine whats-her-name, (she’s the one who had the infant born with the problem) about an unidentified airplane – still to this day – that flew over the White House on 9/11, did anyone happen to see it? It was on in the afternoon.

It was very wierd and afterward I tried to find the story on their website, but was unsucessful. It was almost like they were insinuating that something wasn’t quite right with this phatom airplane.

I was really surprised to see a segment like this on Fox News. I just wasn’t sure what they were trying to put out there or what kind of ideas they were trying to plant in the viewer’s mind. They went as far as saying that the FBI and the CIA have never been able to identify it, it was freaky.

I try not to be a fan of Maher, but he makes it very difficult. Read his book When You Ride Alone You Ride With bin Laden and you will give him a measure of respect. Remove your bias and give his Bravery comment some thought and there is a little sense to it, though you needn’t agree. Heck, I don’t always agree with everything my best friend says; but I still appreciate a good friend. But, to not be able laugh at ANYTHING Maher says is a damn shame. It’s more fun to laugh than hate.

Terrorists are brave….Yet courage is not the dividing line between the two. Morality is.
Berating their manhood and attacking their courage as a tactic makes sense. But don’t you believe it.

Christoph on September 15, 2007 at 6:18 PM

Courage isn’t necessarily, or perhaps even usually the dividing line between the two. But in the case of 9-11 it is. Don’t confuse fighting soldiers in Iraq/Afghanistan with hijacking civilian airliners full of innocents and flying them into buildings, full of innocents. Same applies to the Beslan, Russia school killings. The first takes courage, the second is cowardice. The 9-11 hijackers were not courageous or moral,and therefore not manly. Maher draws no distinction. But wasn’t expecting you to say that.

JiangxiDad, I quite agree their actions were horrible and definitely a lot less honourable than calling up USSOCOM and saying, “We, 19 men will fight you bastards, send your best against us!” but even then the special forces wouldn’t have responded with equal force. They would have used overwhelming force, superior numbers, or, if possible, an air strike.

Muslim military tactics are, as I mentioned, different than Western tactics (Mark Victor Hansen had a great article about this, which I can’t find this morning) and it is barbaric by European/Western standards… but frankly, our standards allow for a lot of death and carnage too.

We will always have a bias for our way of waging war. I am, frankly, okay with not targeting an enemies’ civilians specifically because that’s abhorrent for me too.

But, JD, I am reluctantly forced to conclude that going to your enemies’ country, the most powerful in the world, to train and learn how to take over airliners with piddling little knives, then to knowingly fly those same planes into your enemies’ buildings, one or even two if the second had been successful of which was a valid military target by Western standards, however monstrous, takes discipline and courage:

cour·age (kûrj, kr-)
n.
The state or quality of mind or spirit that enables one to face danger, fear, or vicissitudes with self-possession, confidence, and resolution; bravery.

It meets this test.

I’m not saying it’s good: Courage, in the pursuit of evil, is still evil.

Hence the dividing line is indeed morality.

If you’re going to save something to your hard drive and print it off, which I highly recommend, then make it the article I linked to. It is profound.

And I don’t really disagree with what you are essentially saying, but I have some problems with it around the edges.

The 9-11 attackers more rightly were committing suicide, with victims they didn’t really have to face. However, if you feel that bravery is one of the attributes necessary for successful suicide, then I will understand your point better, but I still wouldn’t agree.

In certain circumstances, great bravery may be necessary for suicide, but never if you’re taking someone else with you.